Watching this special, I was transfixed by its rugged candor, the legacy reckoning, and the eye-popping archival footage. He says that he “would like to look back on my life before I go and just thank God for everything.” What we get from the interview, beyond the awe-inspiring stories of X’s life, is a true American story, an honest reflection of life in a cruel country that forces Black artists into nightmare circumstances and relentlessly punishes them for trying to escape. Most piercingly, X refers to how he once thought he “wouldn’t live to see past 20” and mentions how blessed he feels to have proved himself wrong. We see him pray on camera and invoke his devout faith we hear him candidly recount his difficult relationships with his parents and ex-wife, as well as his love for his children and his deceased dog, Boomer we receive life advice from him, told straight to the camera. Spanning his entire life, from his childhood troubles to his early career and eventual world-shaking fame, the interview shows us the late rapper in many different modes. DMX, clad in glasses, a chain, and a shirt with a vintage photo of Ice Cube, thoughtfully recalls details of his struggle-filled, influential life and career. The special provides an incredibly detailed, poignant, and moving interview. In 2018, writer and academic Jesse McCarthy dedicated his magisterial essay “ Notes on Trap” to “the many thousands gone,” specifically naming six rappers who never made it past their teens, 20s, or 30s in 2019, music critic Craig Jenkins wrote that we were “ losing another rap generation right before our eyes,” noting, among many others, the successive deaths of Lil Peep, Fredo Santana, Mac Miller, and Nipsey Hussle. The scale of this morbidity has now reached a new pitch: murders, overdoses, suicides, vehicle accidents, chronic health conditions, all occurring again and again. Countless other rappers have explicitly resigned themselves in their songs to just two paths forward in life, death or the system, while paying tribute to friends they’ve lost along the way. The two single most acclaimed and influential rappers of all time were gunned down in their prime, their murders still unsolved nearly three decades later. Hip-hop heads are no strangers to the shockwaves of death.
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